The new leader of HCA Florida Putnam Hospital is coming full circle as he works to improve the institution where he was born 39 years ago.
Landon Smith, who began his new role as CEO of Palatka Hospital on Sept. 3, said plans for the hospital are well underway.
Smith said he and his team at HCA Putnam want to make it a hospital where everyone wants to go, whether they’re a patient looking for help or an employee looking for a career.
“We want to be the place patients choose,” he said Thursday, “so when someone needs our services, they think of us and they come straight to us. We want to be an employer of choice.”
Although Smith is a leader in hospital operations, he said he can’t do it alone to make the facility function.
“It’s definitely a team,” he said, “you know, we have a strong team. I’m not a clinician. I don’t see patients, but there’s no one person in our building who can provide everything a patient needs.”
He said he sees himself as a coach for the team of hospital employees, vendors and community members needed to provide gracious care to patients.
The Putnam community has welcomed Smith into his new role, with residents sending him handwritten notes and hospital staff wearing T-shirts with his face on them on his first day on the job, he said.
“I’ve heard a lot of positive feedback,” he said, “people who have reached out to me have said they had a great experience at the hospital, and I would say the biggest benefit is that we have the opportunity to really build and develop the program and increase the services that are offered at the hospital today.”
Smith said he came back to Putnam County with 12 years of experience working in health care administration, and that his first job at age 14 was delivering home medical equipment.
Benji Bates, chairman of the hospital’s board of directors, said the board is excited to have Smith join the company. In a statement Friday, Bates said he is confident great things will happen with Smith at the helm.
“Landon and I have a special connection – we were both born at this hospital,” Bates said in a statement. “It’s rare to have a CEO with such a deep connection to the community, and I believe that really makes a difference. Our patients are not just numbers or statistics – they are our friends, family and colleagues.”
“We should all be grateful to have someone like Landon who turned down other opportunities to come here because of his passion for this community. This isn’t just a step in his career, it’s something he really wants to make an impact.”
Smith said she was interested in and wanted a career in health care because her father worked at Putnam Hospital in the 1980s, rising from accountant to chief financial officer.
Smith said his family lived in Putnam County for three years before moving to Georgia, but he remembers visiting other family members in East Palatka during Christmas, spring and summer holidays. His mother is a teacher, and all of his family is from East Palatka.
“I’ve been in and out of Palatka my whole life,” Smith said, “… (My mother) grew up where Ace Hardware was.”
Though he’s only been back in Palatka for two weeks, he’s already got his sights set on the goals he wants to achieve: He said he has a lot of ideas he’s mulling over, but he needs time to sift through them before he announces any grand plans.
“This place means a lot to the community,” Smith said, “and we certainly know and understand that, and we want to continue to add value for the community.”
